“Explores the world: blogs on celebrity encounters, extraordinary-ordinary people, local politics, tangles with kid(s), and navigates the white water of raising saida kid while editing a fiction manuscript.

My curiosity about the evening got the better of me, and I asked lame question number three, a slight quaver in my voice, “Where are we going?”

“We have big plans,” he said and tightened his grip as if he thought I might run away. “There are three things on our agenda. First, I want to do something dangerous and memorable with you… (A Single Pearl, Chapter Three).

Lisa: +sofa description, like the helicopter excuse, but that he came by. ? ‘creating an internal experience,’ what does that feel like? +Endless..” +Hope they never crossed my palate, +instincts…my mom.

Pam: Your female character is charming. Lee is a rascal! He seems “slick” is he? Dialogue is convincing. ?Not one Korean server in sight? Chopsticks?

Peggy: Oh, I wish I hadn’t missed where they were!? (Hawaii?). +great descriptions (restaurant), + ‘Fight like made dogs,’ great additions to the characters (What I heard anyway). Sorry I missed so much! 😦

EDITS: Mel offered a great suggestion, enhancing this section with a reference to a dog. There he stood, right on time. He looked like a guy ready for his first date with a nice girl, but not ready for the girl’s family. “Is the dog tied up?” he asked looking around for Chloe.

LIFE EXPERIENCE: To improve the restaurant scene, we went out (in real-life) to a Korean restaurant and ran our tongues over very strange and alarming tastes, but it added to the developing food description. In the book, I sent a Korean server to their table, and Lee tried to help Kerri Ann operate chopsticks; she never gets better at it, not even in Part II. In fact, if she’s not careful she may put someone’s eye out.

Lee ordered for us without looking at a menu, sounded like a lot of goop to me and they all arrived at the same time. Floating slivers of green onion in a clear broth that left a faint fishy aftertaste, a variety of little dishes: eggplant, a chard-like pickled vegetable that he called radish, something that appeared to have been string beans before shredding, slimy mushrooms, spicy potatoes. Everything cooked but served cold, and those were just the appetizers. The main dish was a bowl of yuk—cooked sprouts, fried egg, more mushrooms, zucchini, blackened seaweed—and buried at the bottom rice. That I could swallow.

Lisa: your change in references to the food ‘interesting,’ good food description. Like hearing about his father, want to hear more about his family in first chapter. + ‘A friend from home’ (moon); liked that she declined to answer questions about previous relationships. ? ‘and this time do it with meaning’? Didn’t you use that before re a kiss? Porch light?

Pam: I like the way you weave in her past with the current conversation. Why trapped? And why was she fighting it? + ‘logical progression;’ great ending.

EDITS: Kerri Ann felt ‘trapped’ in the restaurant right before Lee leaned in for a kiss, softened that up in the rewrite, and of course, the evening ended with a kiss…

I walked him to his hotel door, fulfilling my secret desire to know which room he slept in, and wondered what it would feel like to be so sophisticated you’d follow a boy home and walk right in. Considered if I could do it.

“Coming in?” he asked.

“I…I…,” I stuttered, stumbled onto solid ground and said, “Not with your friends around.” I might be curious, but I wasn’t courageous.

His words ended the evening on a light note. “Ja-ky, I wish I could slip inside my room and disappear as smoothly and efficiently as you, but I’m a regular guy, not a magician.”

When I laughed he wrapped me in a playful embrace.“Do that again,” I invited.